From Riches To Rags Part 6

I disentangled myself from the groping hands of my groupies and introduced myself to the blond. "Youre new around here, arent you? My name is Blackie Blackstone, welcome to my home."

"Thank you, Blackie. Ive heard a lot about these parties and thought Id tag along with Rickie to see what its all about."

Ricki was one of my usual guests. She wore mens clothes and had a buzz cut. She usually came to my parties just to pick up the women I discarded, but she had her uses too. If one of my groupies got to emotional, she would take her off my hands. I have never been the type who likes clingy women, especially those who want to bare my children while they pick my pocket. I get a lot of those types at my parties.

"Well, remind me to thank Rickie for her good taste. How did she manage to latch onto a beautiful doll like you?" I think my Boilermaker just reached my brain. Its going the wrong direction.

"Shes my cousin."

"Oh yeah? So much the better. So, what shall I call you?"

"My names Suzanne but most folks just call me Suze."

"Thats a lovely accent, Suze, are you from the south?"

"Yes, Im from Little Rock."

"I dont think Ive ever been there. The closest Ive gotten is Memphis. Ever been to Memphis?"

"Of course, many times. I practically lived on Beale Street when I was a younger, dancing to jazz music and eating barbeque until my veins ran red from the sauce. You wont find any better barbeque than at The Kings BBQ on Beale. Have you ever eaten there?"

Oh my G.o.d, am I being punked? I looked around to see if there was a hidden camera somewhere, and while everyone had their cellphones out taking pictures, none of them were pointed my way. Okay, if its not a joke, than Im being punished by G.o.d, or fate or the devil himself.

"Were you looking at me, Blackie?" A half-clad, drunken floozy asked as she wobbled over to me.

"What? Who are you again?"

"Its Bristol. We met in a bar, remember?"

I looked at her but what I heard come out of her mouth was Chris is not one of your floozies that you pick up at a bar. "What the f.u.c.k?"

"What is it, Blackie?" Rickie asked.

I was beginning to draw a crowd and I needed a cover story. "Oh uh, what the f.u.c.k, my gla.s.s is empty."

Everyone laughed and instantly ten bottles of booze were shoved at my face. I took the bottle closest to me and chugged down a large quaintly of whiskey.

"Yeah, thats much better!" I slurred, as I made my way back to the couch.

But I wasnt drunk. Tipsy maybe, but not drunk yet. Again I thought I was being punished. I needed to be drunk to drown the apparitions haunting me.

I looked around at my so called friends, slos.h.i.+ng liquor on my lounge chair, breaking gla.s.ses, staining my carpet, and I decided that I needed some fresh air. I elbowed my way to the front entrance, half-heartedly smiling when someone pinched my b.u.t.t, and opened the door. A quick look back a.s.sured me that no one had noticed me leaving. No one cared. Once out in the hallway, I punched the elevator. Just as it arrived, Suzanne came out the door and got in the car with me.

"Leaving so soon?" I asked her, not really caring that she was leaving my party, I was just making polite conversation.

"I could ask you the same thing. But yes, this was not my kind of party."

"Oh, how so?"

"I dont do drugs or lascivious s.e.x."

"Aw, are you a virgin?" I regretted the question the moment I asked it but my mouth had a will of its own at the moment.

"No, I am not. I have morals."

I went for years without ever having met a person with morals and all of a sudden, Im inundated with them. Well, I think George has morals, but he only grew a pair after Chris told me off.

"Suzanne, if I promise not to corrupt your morals, would you like to take a walk with me? I love to walk the strip at this hour and see how alive and festive it is."

"Id like that. Ive never seen Vegas at night, except for the cab ride over here from Rickies place."

We walked for a long while, talking mostly about morals, until we ended up at the Bellagio fountains. We were just in time to see the water show. Suzanne was awestruck by the water spectacle, and I was having lascivious thoughts about Suzanne. Now, I know this may be a crude way to say it, but I cant walk the streets of Vegas with a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like on my arm, without getting a hard on. Im only human after all, and besides, its in keeping with my reputation, or so Ive been told. If they wont accept that Im trying to change my rep, then I might as well add to it. Tonight Suzanne will learn that morals arent everything, not when it comes to Blackie getting what she wants.

I got us a table at an exclusive c.o.c.ktail lounge and ordered oysters, pomegranates, olives and red wine. The waiter looked at me knowingly, and I quietly tipped him extra to keep us supplied with every food aphrodisiac he could think of. I plied Suzanne with wine, food, and compliments, until I had her aroused and pulsating. Her reserve all but gone, I checked us into the Bellagio and ordered champagne and strawberries.

I took a plump, juicy strawberry and dipped it into a gla.s.s of champagne, before wrapping my lips around it, seductively biting into it, and suckling the tart taste of its juices. Suzanne moaned, although I dont think she was aware of it. I smiled. She picked up a strawberry and dipped it into the champagne, and gingerly touched my lips with it. Again I suckled the exquisite fruit as I watched her eyes cloud with longing. I asked her if she trusted me, and she nodded shyly. Then I asked her to lean back and I unb.u.t.toned her blouse, exhaling sharply when I saw her plump, rosy tipped, b.r.e.a.s.t.s spill out. I took another strawberry and dipped it in sugar this time. I ran a trail from under her lip, down her neck, between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and to her belly. Then I started at her stomach and began to lick the sugar off, moving up her abdomen, and between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, causing her to s.h.i.+ver with heat. As I continued to lick the sugar, I squeezed the tip of her erect t.i.t, and she gasped. I licked my way up to her lips, nibbling on her lower lip, and her groan of pleasure fanned the flames in the pit of my stomach. I parted her lips with my kiss, and my tongues penetrated her mouth, probing and sucking until she moaned again.

As I consumed her with my voracious overtures, I ran my hand down to her pants and unzipped them. I could feel the heat emanating up from between her legs and as I slipped my hand inside, I felt her lubrication. But she hesitated, and moved my hand from its just rewards. She was wavering, so I moved my lips to her breast and lightly bit the hard tip, as I wrapped my fingers deep into its flesh and kneaded all the pleasure from it I could. She groaned and arched her back, a clear indication to me that I was about to get what I wanted.

Suddenly I stopped and looked at her. As implausible as it might seem, I was about to take advantage of her and I realized that was wrong. I realized that I had morals too.

What? Why now, for G.o.ds sake, when shes ready to pop. I cant do that to her.

"d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l!" I jerked back, running my fingers through my bangs. "s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t!"

Suzanne opened her eyes and looked at me, "Whats wrong? Why did you stop, Blackie? Was it because I hesitated for a second, because really, its okay now." She took my hand and put it back on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but after a soft squeeze, I removed it.

"Im so sorry, Suzanne. Im so sorry." I had never apologized for s.e.x before, because I had never cared whether it was the right thing to do or not. I just satisfied my needs and if they were satisfied also, so much the better. But when the realization hit me that what I had done to her was wrong, I wanted to cry. Not because it was wrong but because it frustrated my libido.

I took Suzannes hand in mind and looked her in the eyes. "Suzanne, you deserve better than someone who feeds you wine and aphrodisiacs, and whispers sweet nothings in your ear so youll go to bed with her, uh, I mean me."

"Is that what you did, Blackie?" Suzanne asked as she pulled her hand away and set up, clutching her s.h.i.+rt together over her beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Thats what I did, and Im not proud of it. Im sorry that I couldnt stop myself sooner."

"Im not. Just because Im from Arkansas doesnt make me a country b.u.mpkin, you know. I knew what you were doing and I could have stopped myself, but I didnt."

"Then why did you move my hand away?"

"Because, I wanted to prolong the ecstasy I was feeling. I was afraid maybe you were one of those girls who liked to rush things."

I looked at her in complete wonderment. I had totally misjudged everything about this girl. What is wrong with me? I already knew the answer, and it cut me to the quick. My ego once again led me down a path I didnt want to take. And then I smiled because I realized, my morals just beat the s.h.i.+t out of my ego.

"Come on, let me get you home, Suzanne."

Chapter Nine.

Making Friends Christine Livingston and Norma Shelby "Ms. Shelby, how are you this morning?"

Ever since my neighbor and I bonded over our kittens, I have tried to be more attentive to her needs. Every morning I have knocked on her door to collect her garbage and asked how she was doing. Her answer was always the same, her sciatica was acting up. I always showed concern, though I had no idea what a sciatica was. She seemed to appreciate it.

This morning, out of the blue, she invited me into her apartment. I felt privileged, because I knew, like me, she was afraid to trust just anyone.

"Oh my goodness." I had walked back in time as if I walked into a museum. Her one bedroom apartment with its own kitchen was immaculately clean, although cluttered with antiques, and full of old world history.

I didnt know where to look first. I ran my fingers over an old phone and she told me that it was a Belgium rotary telephone her parents used. With her calico kitten purring in her arms, she took me on a tour of some of the items, like the cutest little naked doll sitting on the bookcase. She called it a Kewpie Doll and said they were all the rage in back her day. Then she pointed out the framed baseball jersey, enclosed in gla.s.s, hanging over the bookcase. It was next to a faded movie poster of a young woman in a seductive pose, with her mouth wide open, screaming. The words, Invaders from Pluto were across the top and the stars name in bold letters underneath the t.i.tle. Almost as large as the stars name, were the words all talking picture.

She explained that the baseball uniform, which had All American curved across its chest, was the jersey her boyfriend wore. As if reliving the moment, she beamed with pride when she said that he played for the Memphis Chickasaws.

"My father would have loved that." I said, explaining that my father was a baseball history buff, and used to tell me stories about the Chicks when I was very young.

She was pleased by that, and told me that she was eighteen when she married him, just before he went off to war. And then she seemed to go back to that time, when he was killed in Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge. Her eyes liquefied when she picked up a small portrait of a young man in uniform, and she kissed it so softly, and then put it back on the shelf.

"And the movie poster?" I asked, trying to bring her back to this room again.

"Thats me, dear, in my very first movie."

I looked at the poster again and asked, "Youre Norma Shelby?"

"Yes, pretty saucy back in my day, wasnt I?"

"How wonderful. Im living next door to a movie star."

"Child, that movie was made back in the forties, before you were born and Im sure, even before your parents were born."

"Id love to see it; do you have a copy we could watch sometime?"

"No, unfortunately I never got around to buying a copy. In fact, I dont have copies of any of my movies, mores the pity. Anyway, time has pa.s.sed quietly, no one remembers me anymore."

I patted her back and said, "Well, now someone will."

She offered me a cup of coffee in a fine China cup, and we chatted for quite a long time. She told me how she had outlived her only daughter, and lost contact with her grandchildren. She got up and took a framed picture from the shelf and handed it to me.

"This is the last picture of my dear daughter, Rebecca."

"Im so sorry, Norma."

"Sadly she died giving birth to her second child, and then her husband was transferred so he took the children and moved away. Over the years the children grew up and married, to busy with their own family to think of me."

She had such a forlorn look in her eyes and it was then that I truly understood what loneliness really was. I may be struggling, but my parents are still living. I know in my heart that I will see them again one day, and I will make them proud. I have hope, I have goals, and I have a future to look forward to. Even though it looks bleak at the moment, it is still obtainable. Norma could only look back at her memories, she couldnt see a future worth looking forward to. That broke my heart.

But she refused to linger on it, and changed the subject. Before I realized it, we had talked the morning away and I needed to get ready for work. When I told her that I had to leave, she invited me back tomorrow for breakfast. I explained that I worked until two A.M., and tended to miss breakfast because I was usually asleep at that time. She smiled and put her soft, dry hand on my arm and said I was to come to lunch then, and she wouldnt take no for an answer. I told her I would look forward to it, and that was the truth.

Making Friends Melinda aka Blackie Blackstone and George Kirk "George, got a minute?"

I never had the need to seek advice from other people before. I either did what my parents told me, or paid people to do it for me. But this thing with Chris and morals had me confused, and at a loss.

"Sure, whats up, Blackie? Are you still in Memphis?"

"No, Im back in Vegas." And after two days, Im ready to go back to Memphis.

"Thats an interesting development. Want to tell me about it?"

Suddenly the flood gates opened up and I told George everything, sparing him nothing. When I told him that Chris said we couldnt be friends I think I even cried a little, like a silly school girl.

"Im uh, not sure what to do next, George. I mean I got her kitten back, but she still walked away from me."

"What were you expecting?"

"I dont know, I guess that she would at least talk to me. Was that too much to ask?"

"Yes, it was."

"Why the h.e.l.l do you say that?" If he wasnt p.i.s.sing me off, I might have appreciated his insight a little more.

"Because, when you did something nice for her, you accomplish it by doing something wrong. I told you, when you can do something nice for her, and not expect a reward for it, she will be able to see past your larger than life reputation, and learn that theres a caring person underneath it."

"I think thats the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, George."

"Its my job to"

My eyebrow arched sarcastically and I sneered, "Oh, yeah, should have known."

"You didnt let me finish. Its my job to peel away the layers and get to the heart of the person so I can write honestly about their life. Blackie, you have a lot of layers that Chris has to look through before she can see your heart. You need to help her out with that."

"How?" I asked.

"Youre off to a good start with the cat, do more things like that, only this time dont buy your way into it, like you did with the landlord, do it because you want to, not because you think it will get her to talk to you or confide in you. Just be a friend to her."

"I, um, apparently dont know how to be a friend. Ive never had a friend before, not like youre talking about."

"Im your friend, Blackie."

"Yeah, well, you have to be, dont you?"

"No, not at all. Your parents pay me, not you, and they are not my only client. Even if you had them fire me, I would be just fine. So you see, you have no strings to pull with me. When I say that I honestly want to help you succeed with Chris, I mean it."

Is that what he means by being a friend? Its so much easier to just buy a friend for however long I needed them. But thats not what I want this time.

"Well, it doesnt really matter anyway, I mean about Chris. She doesnt want to be my friend."

"But did she say that she never wanted to see you again?"